The Cool Lab
Cool Labs use the existing financial and technological landscape of the world today and simply change the way products are produced in order to heal the earth, balance carbon, and make more real wealth for more people more quickly.
Albert Bates
Why Are We Waiting (for Peak Oil)?
Remember those long holiday road trips where the question endlessly repeated was “are we there yet”? Well, for many in the peak oil community, waiting for it to arrive has evoked a similar feeling, as the predictions of some academics, commentators, and bloggers have failed to materialize punctually.
Goodbye Administrative State, Hello Community Resilience
White House strategist Steve Bannon’s project for the “deconstruction of the administrative state” appears to be out of the starting blocks and well on its way toward a glorious victory lap…While the Reagan and Bush II administrations sought to aggressively weed out unwanted federal rules, Trump appears to be taking a flamethrower to the entire garden patch.
The World at 1°C — March ‘17
One of the many facets of humanity threatened by climate change is language itself, our ability to construct narrative to make sense of the world around us. How does a collection of words capture what confounds the limits of human imagination? How do you thread together a story about the unweaving of life?
Beware of the Techno-Optimists!
The messages of the techno-optimists are both deceptive and dangerous as it makes people believe that most problems can be solved by technological innovation which in turn make them passive in the political, social and economic arena.
Shifting from Technologies that Destroy Nature to those that Conserve it
Nature-like technologies, a phrase coined by Vladimir Putin, is a focal point of discussion in this recent interview with Dmitry Orlov. The technosphere can be a dangerous place, according to Orlov’s new book, Shrinking the Technosphere.
The Question I Get Asked the Most
Because if individual action can’t alter the momentum of global warming, movements may still do the trick. Movements are how people organize themselves to gain power—enough power, in this case, to perhaps overcome the financial might of the fossil fuel industry.
The Caring Economy: Well-Being and the Invisible Heart
Economics should recognize that unpaid care work—e.g., caring for children, for elders, for the infirm—provides economically valuable services that contribute both to living standards and to the Gross Domestic Product.
Ten Theses on Trump
…we must accelerate construction of the prefigurative commons economy, with its respect for the sharing of knowledge (free movements), just distribution of the social surplus (solidarity economy), and ecologically viable production for human need (political ecology).
6 Charts That Show Trump Isn’t Stopping the Renewable Energy Revolution Any Time Soon
The solar industry was responsible for creating one out of every 50 new jobs in the U.S. last year and the country’s fastest-growing occupation is wind turbine technician — so no matter one’s feelings on climate change, the renewable energy train has left the station, according to a new report.
Publishing on Climate in the Age of Trump
At Chelsea Green Publishing, where I acquire and develop books, we’ve long understood that the climate issue reaches into every corner of our lives—from the way we structure our local, regional, and national economies and politics to the way we grow our food and feed our families; build, renovate, locate, and power our homes; transport ourselves and our goods; structure our workplaces, communities, our energy grids, industries; and so much more.
United Nations: Agroecology, not Pesticides, is the Future for Food
A new report by two United Nations human rights experts has rejected the notion that pesticides are necessary in feeding the world, claiming that they undermine “the rights to adequate food and health for present and future generations.” T
